American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Announces the Launch of its Shoulder and Elbow Registry

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Announces the Launch of its Shoulder and Elbow Registry

Mission to improve orthopaedic care through the collection, analysis, and reporting of actionable data

ROSEMONT, Ill. (October 24, 2018) — The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) announced the launch of its Shoulder and Elbow Registry (SER) to begin collecting data on total shoulder and elbow procedures in the United States. At launch, the SER will collect total shoulder arthroplasty procedures data. In 2019, the registry also will have the capability to capture rotator cuff repair and total elbow arthroplasty procedures data.

“Registries are tools to help the medical profession collect data, report, and benchmark to define patient-centered quality care to identify potential procedural or implant problems before it becomes a widespread public health issue. Other national joint replacement registries such as the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register have proven that monitoring survivorship can reduce revision rates. That translates into reducing direct medical costs and, more importantly, improving patient care and quality of life,” says AAOS President David A. Halsey, MD, a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

The AAOS is the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists. The SER will be the second in a series of anatomical registries in development as part of the AAOS’ Registry Program to establish survivorship curves, track revisions, and improve quality of care for all patients. The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR)—the Academy’s hip and knee replacement registry—is the cornerstone of the AAOS’s Registry Program, and the world’s largest national registry of hip and knee joint replacement data by annual procedural count, with more than 1.4 million procedures contained within its database.

“In addition to reducing the overall public cost, joint registries demonstrate up to a 50 percent reduction in revision rates after registry initiation and identification of best practices,” says Gerald R. Williams Jr., MD, chair of the AAOS’ SER Steering Committee and Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “There are more than 750,000 total shoulder arthroplasty, rotator cuff repair, and total elbow arthroplasty surgeries performed in the United States each year. An evidence-based registry, like the Shoulder and Elbow Registry, is a cost-effective way to benchmark risk-adjusted data, and provide greater context to patient outcomes comparisons. Identifying improvement needs can potentially mitigate surgical revisions which could lead to millions of dollars in stakeholder savings annually.”

The SER was developed in conjunction with representatives from the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES), the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, and the Arthroscopy Association of North America.

“In 1917, American shoulder surgery pioneer EA Codman challenged that patients should be followed long enough to determine if treatments proved successful. More than 100 years later, the AAOS and the ASES are taking a huge step toward that goal,” says Grant E. Garrigues, MD, a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “Every ASES member must take up this charge and truly follow our shoulder patients’ outcomes, pool this data with other surgeons, and determine the optimal treatments for our patients. This registry is a powerful tool to make this possible. This type of data registry is the key to improving patient outcomes and defining best practices.”